Process of cleaning wool slivers.



IJNTTED STATES PATENT ()EEICE.

EMILE ROUSSEL AND DESIRE LEFEBVRE, OF ROUBAIX, FRANCE.

PROCESS OF CLEANING WOOL SLIVERS SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 633,703, dated September 26, 1899.

Application filed April 25, 1899. Serial No. 714,360. (No specimens.)

To (0% whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, EMILE ROUSSEL and DESIRE LEFEBVRE, dyers, citizens of the Republic of France, and residents of Roubaix, (Nord,) France, have invented a new and useful Improvement in the Chemical Cleaning of 001 Slivers, of which the following is a specification.

It has already been proposed to chemically clean wool in the form of sliver just as it leaves the carding or other preparatory machine. For this purpose the sliver was caused to pass through the acid-bath by making it advance in a continuous manner by means of suitable mechanism. By obviating the shaking of the wool in the bath by means of sticks or otherwise, as it is necessary to do when the chem ical cleaning is effected on the raw wool, it was hoped to avoid the felting or matting of the fibers, which is always produced in the latter case and which produces a bad effect in the combing; but one has not succeeded in sensibly diminishing this felting, for the movement imparted to the sliver in the bath sufficed to produce it to a great extent.

Our application for patent relates to a special method of carrying out the cleaning of wool sliver which enables this serious disadvantage to be entirely overcome by assuring the absolute immobility of the fibers during the treatment. Instead of acting directly upon the sliver just as it-leaves the carding or other preparatory machine and causing it to pass in this condition into the known acidbath (a sulphuric-acid bath of about 63 Baum) we first place this sliver on reels in the ordinary manner, and then we immerse this reel just as it is, without unwinding it, in the sulphuric-acid bath. The fibers thus sufficiently supported one against the other are rendered immovable, and the possibility of any movement is prevented, so that no felting is possible. After half an hour the wetting is complete, the reel is withdrawn from the bath, is drained, and then the sliver is unwound and made into a skein or hank,which is suspended in a drier at a temperature of from to centigrade. As soon as the wool is quite dry the thistles and other vegetal impurities are completely carbonized. It is then cold-washed with plenty of water, so as to remove all trace of acid. Even during this washing itis as well to shake the wool as little as possible.

The wetting of the reel in the acid-bath might be effected under pressure.

IVe claim- The process of chemically cleaning wool in the form of a sliver which consists in first placing the sliver in a wound condition in an acid-bath and allowing it to remain therein in a quiescent state until thoroughly wetted, next withdrawing the wound sliver from the bath and draining it, afterward unwinding the sliver and making it into a hank or skein, next drying the hank or skein at a temperature of from 7 0 to 100 Centigrade and finally cold-washing it with water, substantially as herein described.

In testimony that we claim the foregoing as our invention we have signed our names, in presence of two witnesses, this 13th day of April, 1899.

EMILE ROUSSEL. DESIRE LEFEBVRE;

\Vitnesses:

LOUIS FEoIsE, ALFRED O. HARRISON. 

